Relentless
by TheDeep
Summary: Relentless rain hails down on New York as the CSI team slowly finds that they've uncovered something no one was ever meant to find. Now, to make them pay for uncovering the secret, one of their own will be taken...and Don has to race against the clock to save one of his closest friends before it's too late.
1. Chapter 1: Power Out and In

**Author's Note: So, I finally did finish reading **_**Deluge**_**, the last CSI: New York book that I hadn't read, at long last. So, as I was sitting there reading, this thought and a few others struck. So, I do hope you like and reviews and reads alike are appreciated!**

The lights in the crime lab flicked for a moment as a loud clap of thunder sounded not too far off in the distance, bringing Mac Taylor and Danny Messer to look up from their work. Both wore white lab coats as they stood in the ballistics lab.

"That's nice," Danny said with a bit of a frown as the lights in the lab flickered one more time before they went out. There was just enough natural light left in the building that Mac could still see the form of his younger CSI and make out the details.

Mac looked over at him with a patient sigh, possibly a bit exaggerated. "And such is the work of politics and budget cuts," he said, a grin starting to pull at the corners of his mouth.

Danny smirked and Mac finally chuckled. "Budget cuts, huh? Yeah, and they wonder why we all get quiet when they show up in the lab," he muttered.

"My thoughts on politics have been stated previously and really haven't changed," Mac stated as he pulled out his penlight from the pocket of his lab coat and returned to his examination of the test round he'd fired from a suspect's .40 caliber handgun as if nothing had happened.

Danny couldn't help but smirk at the pretty much impassive expression on his coworker's face. "Need a little light, Mac?" he teased.

Another smile played at Mac's lips. "That would certainly help," he replied. As if in answer to that, a flash of lighting split the dark gray sky outside of the lab.

Mac and Danny both raised their heads to look out the windows to the dreary city.

"You wanna know the best thing about this relentless rain?" Mac asked, looking back to Danny.

"Shoot," Danny replied, his brow furrowed as he looked over at Mac.

"Crime rate's down a bit for the moment. No one wants to be out in this rain," Mac replied, nodding to the rain splattered windows of the crime lab.

Danny nodded in acknowledgement. "Ah…and how long will that last, I wonder?" he pointed out.

Mac shrugged and shook his head, frowning just slightly in concentration as his attention returned to the bullet in his hand. With the power down, none of their computers would work. That would seriously hamper their work. "That's the million dollar question now, isn't it?"

It had been raining like this for at least four days, maybe even about a week.

"They better be working on getting our power back," Stella muttered as she joined them, shaking her head.

Mac offered her a slight smile. "Who knows what they're doing?" he pointed out.

A humorless chuckle escaped Stella's lips. "Well, did you manage to get a match before the power went out?" she asked.

Mac nodded and put his penlight back in to the pocket of his lab coat. "Class characteristics are a match, but more specifically, the grooves are a match to the bullet that killed Ryan Toole," he replied.

Stella nodded. "Good, that solves that case. Can I ask you a favor?" she asked.

Mac nodded and quickly slipped the round he'd been working with in to a small evidence envelope before turning to Stella. "What can I do for you?" he asked.

"Hawkes is working on a new case and he needs a gun test fired. He asked me to do it, but I need to check in with Lindsay on trace results and several other things on my own case. Mind shooting off a couple rounds and then calling him?" Stella asked.

Mac shook his head and grabbed the protective glasses he'd had on before examining the bullet. Stella handed him a handgun. One he recognized pretty easily. ".45 caliber Smith and Wesson?" he asked, looking over the gun.

Stella nodded. "Yeah. They said they found it near their crime scene. They want to know if it's a match to this," she said, handing him an evidence envelope with a round in it.

Mac nodded and looked over the bullet in the envelope quickly. "Right size," he said. That much was obvious right off the bat. He then looked back to Stella. "I'll call him as soon as I know something," he said.

Stella nodded. "Thanks Mac," she said with a bit of a smile.

Mac shook his head. "Well, it's not like you asked me to move to China, did you?" he pointed out as he set the envelope with the bullet on the table and put on the safety glasses.

Stella smirked and started off to look for Lindsay. "No, I didn't," she said over her shoulder with a grin.

Mac smirked and took the gun out. Danny looked over at him. "I'm gonna go check with Adam, he should have confirmed our results by now," he said.

Mac nodded. "I'll catch up with you later," he said as Danny headed out in to the lab. Just as he was getting ready to test fire the gun, the lights flickered back on in the lab and the power was back. He had to smile as he raised the gun and took an aim on the target at the end of the shooting range that he'd use to get his test round. "Politics…gotta love it," he muttered, shaking his head just a bit.

Little did any of them know just how big the case would be for them all.


	2. Chapter 2: The Mysterious Coin

"Hey Mac, thanks for coming up," Hawkes greeted with a bit of a smile.

Mac shook his head. "It was no trouble. The bullet from your victim was a match to the .45," he replied.

Hawkes nodded. "That's good news, but I asked you up here for a bit of a different reason," he said. Mac noted he looked a bit confused.

"Alright, what's on your mind?" Mac asked, walking around the table so he stood beside Hawkes. Now he saw the reason Hawkes had looked so confused. "What's that?" The question was out before Mac could catch himself. He knew exactly what it was. It was a coin, but…why did they have a coin?

"I found it on the victim," Hawkes replied, not bothering to answer Mac's question since he knew they both knew the answer. "The thing is…it's not a coin used in any country as a form of currency based on what I found out. I checked every system and source we have and I couldn't find anything like this," he explained.

Mac nodded. It reminded him of the gold coins that had come up on one case with Sebastian Diakkos. Yet…they weren't the same…but they were almost similar. "Any idea on what it's made out of?" he asked, looking up from the coin to Hawkes.

Hawkes shook his head. "Not yet, I had Adam run the sample as I checked over the rest of the victim's clothes," he responded.

Both of them looked up as Adam came in, tablet in hand. They had recently started using tablets in the lab to hold information on their certain cases. It helped out a lot when it came to organizing information. Outside, another flash of lightning split through the dark gray sky.

"It's like a penny," Adam announced as he handed the tablet to Mac, who looked down at the information displayed on the screen. "Only…it's not," Adam added with a bit of a shrug. He had the same confused look that Mac and Hawkes had.

"Copper," Mac said as if it made no sense at all. Hawkes looked over at him, but not with a strange look. It just _didn't_ make sense at all.

"Copper," Hawkes repeated, looking back down at the coin. "What in the world could these be used for?" he asked, shrugging but leaving his hands in the air. He looked at Adam and then Mac. Both of them shrugged and Mac was shaking his head.

"It had to be somehow important to the vic," Mac pointed out. "It looks aged," he said.

Hawkes nodded. "She definitely had it for a while," he agreed.

Adam nodded. "Did you try matching the design to something in the system?" he asked.

Hawkes nodded. "There's absolutely nothing like this anywhere that we know of. We have no record of anything like this coming up before," he replied.

Mac sighed. The confusion still hadn't left his face. "It could have been custom made," he suggested. It would explain why they hadn't come across something like it before. "That would explain why the vic found it so important," he offered.

Hawkes shrugged again. "I have no idea. It could also be something from a group. The design suggests that there might be more of them out there," he pointed out. There was writing alone the top. _Some secrets are best left secrets._ For some reason that sent a bit of chill down Hawkes's spine. It seemed almost…ominous. Something was definitely a bit fishy about the whole thing.

Mac nodded. That also would explain why the victim had found it so important that she had to keep it on her the whole time. "What kind of group?" he asked. He didn't expect an answer and as he looked up at the two other men in the room from studying the engraving on the coin, he saw they were just as lost for an answer to that as he was. "We need to find out more about this, more about her. Do we know her name?"

"I checked Missing Persons and ran her DNA and Fingerprints through the system. No matches whatsoever. No one was missing her and she wasn't in the system for anything," Hawkes replied. "Sid said she was about late 20s, early 30s. Exact age…I'd guess 28 or 29."

"She was young," Mac said, nodding a bit.

Adam nodded as well. "So…Jane Doe…all we have is this coin and no idea who she is or who we can talk to to find out more?" he asked.

Mac and Hawkes looked over at him and nodded. "Yeah. That's all we have," Hawkes said.

"Where'd you find her?" Mac asked.

"She was found in Brooklyn in an alley by two kids," Hawkes said. "Ages 18 and 16, brothers."

Mac nodded. "And they didn't know her?" he tried again.

Hawkes shook his head. "Never saw her before," he replied.

Mac nodded. "We should try to reach out to the media, see if they can't get her picture up on TV and the newspapers. I'm not sure how much good that'll do with this weather, but hopefully someone will recognize her," he said.

Adam nodded. "Want me to call Don and let him know?" he offered.

Mac nodded again. "Yeah. In the meantime, Hawkes, why don't you stay on this coin, see what else you can find out from it and see if there's anyone that knows more about it than we do. I'm gonna check with Danny, see if he has anything I need to know about my other case and then I'll come back and help you," he said.

Hawkes nodded. "Got it," he agreed.

Adam nodded as well and went off to call Don while Mac went to hunt down Danny while Hawkes turned back to the coin. If they could crack the mystery of the coin, they might be able to find someone that knew their victim.

Outside, the rain still hadn't stopped. It hadn't even lightened up. It was a dark time in the city. Literally and with this case…figuratively.


End file.
